Web pages are widely used to distribute information though the Internet and intranets to users possessing access to a network having connectivity to a web server storing and serving the web pages. Web pages have become a widely accepted vehicle for disseminating information because they can be easily accessed by a wide variety viewing platforms. Of course personal computers can display web pages, but the ability to access web pages goes beyond personal computers to include laptop computers, personal digital assistants, net books, e-readers, smart phones, tablet computers and more.
Although once simple, web pages now can be relatively complex including scripts, frames, embedded videos, embedded audio and the like. Web pages can be dynamic in nature. Content for dynamic web pages can be drawn from separate, discrete sources, rather than a single repository. Dynamic web page data can be retrieved from their sources just prior to display in a web browser. Often, dynamic web page data can be retrieved and displayed in the web browser by executing a script included in the web page source. When a user navigates to a relatively complex web page, source web page data such as HTML (hyper text mark-up language), XML (extended mark-up language) or the like is retrieved.
Web browsers can offer functionality by allowing a web page to be archived or saved so that it can be viewed at a later time when the web browser no longer has a connection to the Internet or intranet. Archiving a currently displayed web page (also referred to as a live web page, particularly when the displayed web page includes dynamic content) usually includes the steps of evaluating the live web page that has been retrieved and producing one or more files that can be archived. The archived files can be converted back to a live web page by simply evaluating the archived files, including running the scripts that were captured during the archiving process. Unfortunately, the display of archived web page data can sometimes result in erroneous web data being displayed. A common error can be a duplication of images shown in a web page. For example, the duplication can be caused by the inclusion of an image captured during the archive process and also the inclusion of an image included by the execution of a script included in the archived web data such as JavaScript™.
The display of replicated images as the web page is display can confuse a user, delay the display process and in some cases cause the web browser to error and, in extreme cases, can cause the web browser stop running. Therefore what is desired is a way to archive and restore web browser data that reduces duplication errors when the web page is displayed.